Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Teacher evaluation – with a cake of soap.

My school is in an unpleasant situation – due to a
combination of falling enrolments and budget cuts we have to lose some
staff. Which leads to the unfortunate
scenario of how to decide who is to leave the school. Judging a teacher by the
results of their students is not as sound as it seems – given our socio-economic
index some great teachers have results that might be considered mediocre in other
contexts. (After all, do we judge the
quality of a dentist by the number of cavities in the teeth of his or her patients
– or by the quality of the intervention he or she provides?) And then, we have
those teachers who have pleasing results, but given the calibre of the students
in their class, they should have. So
student results alone are not a reliable indicator of effective teaching. How then do we evaluate a teacher? What are the reliable indicators? In short, there probably isn’t one single
indicator that can be used in isolation reliably.

It reminded me of a conversation I had earlier in my career.

Bernard, one of the school cleaners, sat down beside me. “I
reckon you’ll be a good teacher,” he said.

“Why,” I asked, flattered but a little bemused as I had only
been in the school for a little while.

“Soap,” he said.

“Soap?” I echoed.

“Soap,” he said again.

He stared at my blank expression and explained.

“Since you’ve come to the school I’ve had to replace the
soap in the men’s toilet. You’re the only new male teacher this year. That tells me that you wash your hands when
you go to the toilet.”

“Well, yes of course I do.”

“Well, not everyone does – otherwise I’d have been replacing
the soap more often before this."

“So how does that make me a good teacher?”

“Well, it shows me that you take care of yourself. It also
tells me you do the right thing even without someone watching over your
shoulder … so to speak.”

He smiled at me again, as if I was being admitted into some
conspiracy. Leaning forwards he continued.

“And I’ve been talking to the cleaner who does your area.
She tells me you always leave your desk tidy. Tidy – not spotless, but tidy,
like a workspace. And the classroom tidy. No mess on the floor. Shelves tidy.
Resources away. Books on the shelves before the kids leave. That tells me you
are organised, that you have structure.
So you put those things together – a person who uses soap and has a tidy
desk – well, it makes you a well organised person who does the right thing
without someone checking up on you.
Tells me you have pride – pride in yourself and pride in what you
do. Seems like a recipe for a good
teacher to me,” he said and moved away.

Was he right? That’s not for me to say – but I was promoted
twice within that school.

Our profession is now so dominated by data, controlled by
protocols, and prejudiced by procedures that we sometimes forget one of the
quotations often attributed to Albert Einstein.

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not
everything that can be counted counts.”

(The attribution is likely to be wrong – researchers believe that the phrase may have originated
with William Bruce Cameron in his 1963 text “Informal Sociology: A Casual
Introduction to Sociological Thinking”. But who wants to sacrifice star power
for historical accuracy?)

Regardless of the origins of
the quote there is no doubting the perception of its originator.

So what then makes a good
teacher? There is no end of research…perhaps
none more user friendly than this list
of effective teacher characteristics from Stanford. But ultimately, even
this type of informed research does not necessarily capture the essence of a
good teacher. It is a bit like deconstructing
the word count of a good book and saying that good books use the letters a, t,
and e more than x, y and z – it misses the point.

A good teacher certainly has
all the usual organisational and behavioural traits usually attributed to them.
They certainly have the skills itemised above. But more than that - they care.

They care about their
students. They take responsibility for their learning and work tirelessly to
address their learning needs. Everything else is a bonus.

Post a Comment

Sociable

Search Exploring Education

Pages

About Me

I've been involved with education for around three decades - I've taught all grades from Prep to final year University. Particular interest in mathematics, literacy and ICT education.
Twitter id = @Nevbar1